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Hosting a cinema fundraiser can be a fun way to raise money for your school, sports club or charity. Here are our top 10 tips to help turn your movie night into a profitable success.

1. Movie Selection

Choose a movie with wide appeal, preferably with a (G) or (PG) rating, that way you are targeting as wide an audience as possible. It doesn’t have to be a latest release film, many successful movie fundraisers have screened older cult and classic titles. Some films also lend themselves to dressup possibilities, this can give you the opportunity to award prizes to best dressed. We can also direct you to cheaper film titles, but it’s often best to go with what you think will get people excited, not what you can get cheapest. Although sometimes the cheaper movie title just happens to be the one you get excited about.

2. Venue

The great thing about hiring a mobile cinema over a bricks and mortar cinema is that we come to you. Our versatile mobile cinema can be set up in your club rooms, oval, gym or hall, indoors or out, providing a unique cinematic experience that will be a night to remember rather than just a night at the movies.

3. Promotion

You can’t have too much promotion when you are putting on a cinema fundraiser, however you don’t always have to pay for a full page advert to get noticed. Sending out press releases to your local newspapers and radio stations might get you an article or a spot on the radio talking about your fundraiser. Social media is fantastic, but don’t rely on that alone, put up posters, letterbox drop the area and have flyers in shops. Recruit volunteers to help out with this, and make sure your members/community are shouting about it wherever they go, too. As a part of Road Movie Mobile Cinema’s service we can help you promote your event by publishing it on our website and across our social media sites.

4. Cinema Advertising

As part of our service we can help put together pre-show advertising to run before your feature film, allowing you to offer ‘Big Screen’ advertising for your own event by approaching local businesses.You may have members of your membership community who would like to advertise their business or services in this way, which they will be able to claim as a tax deductible business expense! They can purchase a slide slot with as little as a logo and/or photograph and telephone number/web details. Have a table set up for business cards and pamphlets. You can also include sponsor logo’s on all your promotional materials; posters, postcards and flyers. It’s also a great idea to get on the microphone before the movie and thank your sponsors, giving them a bit extra exposure. You can charge however much you like for this, and it all goes towards the proceeds of your event.

5. Ticket Sales

It’s a great idea to pre-sell tickets, that way you have a feel for how you are going and if you need to do more promotion. Some of your local business sponsors may be keen to be ticket outlets prior to the event, as this helps them out by getting extra people into their shop or office. Have your members sell tickets, consider competitions or prizes for best ticket sellers to generate excitement.

6. Ticket Prices

Don’t sell your tickets too cheap. Look at what other cinemas are charging and price your tickets accordingly. Keep in mind that some film distributors will charge up to 35% of the box office takings (Ticket Sales), so this has to be factored in when budgeting for your film night. Alternatively, many fundraisers are successful without selling tickets at all, with good sponsorship- free entry can equal higher attendance rates, making sponsorship more attractive.

7. Intermission

We can include an intermission during your feature film. This allows you to sell extra food and drinks and also gives you an opportunity to put your valued sponsors back up on the big screen. Of course it’s also a great opportunity to get on the microphone and draw raffles and promote your food and drink sales.

8 – Food & Drinks

Commercial cinema’s make most of their money at the candy bar, so this is a great way to get some extra income from your night, too. Sausage sizzles, Pop-corn and Coffee are favourites.

9 – Raffle

Some of your sponsors might be keen to donate some prizes for your raffle, which is always a fun way to raise money. Raffles are best drawn during the intermission as people often forget about the draw by the time you get to the end of the movie. Don’t forget to get on the microphone and thank those sponsors who have gone the extra mile with donations (and make sure they know you will be doing so, as it makes it even more likely that they will)!

10 – Cinema Operator

Hire a mobile cinema company that has a good reputation instead of a cheaper price tag. If you have a cinema full of hundreds of people, with loads of sponsors, the last thing you want is for something to go wrong- putting you in a situation where you may have to offer refunds. Road Movie Mobile Cinema has it’s own fail safe back-up projection system, so if something fails it can be quickly recovered. If you are hiring from someone other than us, ask them what back-up they have in terms of projector, sound and movie. If they don’t have back-up equipment you should find someone who does.